Something to note about Obama's appearance on Meet the Press . . .

[beaconess]

By all accounts, Barack Obama did an excellent job on Meet the Press this morning.

Rewind to mid- 2002 when John Edwards made his first appearance on Meet the Press - it was generally agreed that he did an abysmal job, coming across as shallow and unprepared. In the next two years, Edwards improved exponentially and, by the time of the November 2006 elections, he was extremely polished and effective in live interviews.

If Barack Obama improves at even half the rate that John Edwards did in the same time period, imagine what he'll be like in two years!

[bigdarryl]

1. he doesn't need to improve anything the man's got CHARISMA

you either got it or you don't

[orpupilofnature57]

2. A Media Treat now ,see the way Evil Elf talks to him in 2 yrs

Honest Tim Russert MSM whore that he is ingratiated himself Obama now when he's a Notion ,so in case he's a contender in the future he'll expect a fair chance to express his Liberal views and it won't be there.

[tinfoilinfor2005]

12. Tim is laying his base and collecting quotes

to throw in his face in the next two years. That is why politicians do such fancy tap dancing on Timmy's show. They don't want to choke on their own words somewhere down the line.

[Norbu]

3. can someone explain to me

why the press keeps fawning over how "intelligent" and "articulate" (and now "effective in live interviews") Barack Obama is, as though these were extremely rare qualities to find among human beings?

[beaconess]

5. "effective in live interviews" IS a rare quality among human beings

even among politicians.

His intelligence and articulateness are not rare among human beings but he does seem to possess extra doses of them and his ability to pull the whole package together in a way that enables him to connect with many different kinds of people is very unusual.

[TerdlowSmedley]

11. Yes, "articulate" and "intelligent" are rare in humans. BUT

those are the exact terms you nearly ALWAYS heard Down South in referring to a "presentable" black person. It's condescending to resort to them when speaking of a man like Obama. Of course he is.

[beaconess]

13. Point well taken

[pnwmom]

18. You're forgetting what a dummy our current President is.

It's not a foregone conclusion that any Presidential candidate would be either intelligent or articulate, and it is NOT condescending to use those terms to describe Obama.

[beaconess]

32. But I think his point is that no one finds it remarkable or worth

commenting about when a White public figure is articulate or intelligent. In fact, it's considered unusual when they AREN'T (case in point: GWB). Yet when Black folk manage to string together a coherent sentence, people fall over themselves in awe at how intelligent and articulate they are, as if it's a rarity.

I think he/she is right - we rarely hear White politicians described as articulate or intelligent - it's just assumed that they are.

[pnwmom]

35. I disagree. People OFTEN commented on how intelligent and

articulate Bill Clinton was.

I think people are most likely to comment on this, though, when the person is not only brilliant, but is a great communicator. In other words, someone who doesn't come across as an egghead. Someone who, though highly intelligent, is able to frame an issue in a way that the average person can understand. Again, this was a gift that Clinton had.

[Alhena]

6. I think it is pretty rare

It's not rare for a person to be articulate in the sense of being able to carry on an intelligent conversation. But it IS rare for a politician to be able to get on a news program and give detailed and intelligent extemporaneous answers to difficult questions which are DESIGNED to trip that politician up. I'll concede that Larry King is a soft touch interviewer, and Olberman wasn't very tough on Obama either, but it was clear that Chris Matthews did the very best he could to ask Obama hard questions. And Obama did great on every one of them.

I was told that George Will said on George Stephanopolus's program last week that after having lunch with Obama he knew how major league baseball scouts felt after seeing Alex Rodriguez for the first time. I disagree with George Will on just about everything politically, but no one ever doubted his intelligence. And if a conservative pundit gives those kind of raves to Obama, you know we're dealing with an extraordinary politcal talent.

The thing that has amazed me about Obama lately is that he seems to have far more gravitas than he did earlier. His convention speech was great, but he seemed very young and inexperienced when he gave it. Now he seems to talk with much more gravitas than he did before.

It's ridiculously early to compare Obama to JFK, but I'll admit I'm doing it in my mind.

[pnwmom]

19. Welcome to DU, Alhena!

He's beginning to remind me of a more recent, highly intelligent and articulate President -- Bill Clinton.

[filer]

7. A study in contrast, perhaps?

After all, consider the Decider... On second thought, don't.

[pnwmom]

17. People as intelligent as Obama -- editor of the Harvard Law Review,

Magna Cum Laude at graduation -- are exceptional. And it is even rarer to find someone with that intellectual capacity who communicates well with diverse audiences and conveys the "common touch."

Bill Clinton comes to mind.

[Sensitivity]

4. Can we focus on building a POLITICAL PARTY, not boosting INDIVIDUALS

Happy to hear info on how leaders, including OBAMA, are helping us win
races in the next couple weeks. BUT NOT THIS PERSONALITY BS.

This cult of personality can deny us the chance for having real
ideological revitalilzation. The party can work on ideas regarding
societal and economic good if all that matters is Politicians
looking the way, doing the deads, saying the sayings that make them
popular.

[Mass]

14. No. Do not expect that too much. Personnality is king since

Reagan. Since, but people do not seem to think that issues and competency are important.

Particularly sad when we are on Democratic Underground

This is from Gary Hart's book: The Courage of our Convictions, and this describes the problem very well.

In an age of ego, celebrity, and personality, there is an overpowering search for a leader on a white horse, an exciting new candidate who will lead the Democratic Party out of the wilderness. This search has become a subtitute for tought, for purpose, for conviction. Twenty-first-century Democrats cling to the hope of a messiah in the vacant centrist venue where messiahs never appear.

Instead, the Democratic Party must decide what its core principles are and then, and only then, decide which national leader or leaders best embody those principles. No politician can save a political party that does not know what it stands for"

[Sensitivity]

16. Thanks for insightful quote. Says what I was trying to say.

I should edit my own comment. I left out the NOT in the following:

The party canNOT work on ideas regarding
societal and economic good if all that matters is Politicians
looking the way, doing the deads, saying the sayings that make them
popular.

[1932]

24. Personality has been king since TV, which meant politicians didn't have to

go through party bosses to reach voters.

[Mass]

25. May be, but this also diminishes the importance of issues and

rises cults of personnality. A president, a senator, ... should not be a rock star. He should be a person who can demonstrate his ability to solve the issues the country has to fight and who can show the principles he is going to use for that.

I am not saying that Obama could not meet these two challenges. I am saying that, by the way it is done now, he (and others) are not asked to meet them, and it is too bad for democracy.

[1932]

27. I'm not sure democracy loses much by having

politicans have to make direct appeals to voters.

[Mass]

28. The pb is not the direct appeal. The pb is that issues are brushed

under the table and that the election is reduced to a horse race.

Sometimes, you would think that American Idol is more important than a presidential election.

[MontanaMaven]

29. Great Hart quote. We can do both.

We are the leaders. We should determine our course and look for the leaders who will lead that charge. We need to put together a team. Reagan was more than a personality. He was part of the movement to get rid of the New Deal from his appearance in 1964 on. The last Democrat to lead a movement and have a great personality was Jesse Jackson. You need charisma,character and something important to sell. We are the ones that need to work on the message and then pick a messenger who really believes it and also doesn't present it in power point but in passion.

[pnwmom]

20. We need to concentrate on WINNING ELECTIONS

pure and simple, and for that we need winning candidates. In the end, people don't vote for a platform, they vote for people. That's human nature.

[Mass]

22. So, we are doomed forever.

We can as well run a Republican.

And you are doing a great disfavor to Obama by saying that, because you are negating any positive points he may have. You are just saying he could win because the media like him. Remember how the media favors can fall without any reason when you are not all new, all fresh (and, at this rythm, he will not be that any more in a couple of weeks).

[pnwmom]

34. No, I'm not saying to pick him because the media likes him.

I'm saying that the media likes him for ONE of the reasons many of us like him: he is a communicator. He may turn out to be a great communicator. That means he LISTENS as well as SPEAKS. He seems to have some empathy for people different from himself, and an ability to reach out. He is highly intelligent and can hold his own in dialogue with the "experts", and yet can frame issues in a way less intelligent person can understand. In many ways, he reminds me of Bill Clinton.

As far as Obama's positions on the issues, we're not going to find anyone with a 100% perfect stand on the issues. But, according to www.progressivepunch.com, he is the 8th most progressive Senator, voting from the progressive point of view 92% of the time.

[MontanaMaven]

23. Yes, we are asking for a BIG change

I agree wth Sensitivity. We need a movement and not looking for a great man or woman. That's the Republicans. That's the Daddy Party. We need brothers and sisters and solidarity. "The leaders we are looking for are us". What has happened in the last six years is "outrageous", said Cenk Ujgar this morning on The Young Turks.
We should be outraged at the loss of life and our good name in Iraq. We should be outraged at the assault on the middle class. We should be outraged at how we treat our citizens in a disaster like Katrina. We should be outraged that our right to Habeas Corpus has been taken away. We should be outraged that our elections have been compromised and downright rigged.
We should be outraged that Republicans have rubber stamped everything this President wanted and outraged that Democrats still believe in some kind of fantasy that we can compromise with these snakes. If the other side doesn't compromise, then what a Dem does is capitulates. So Cenk was disappointed in the unaudaciousness of Obama.
Let's keep our eye on two weeks from now. We must clean up this corrupt and compromised Congress. The Democrats must be the party of those of us who work for a living and are proud of it. The Repugs can be the party of the rich old white guys who think manure on their boots is just fine. And who think bigotry is something to be proud of. That's right. I'm not a center right Democrat. I'm ready to rumble. Get mad and get out the vote. Vote as if your life and your children's future depended on it; because it does.

[BruceMcF]

26. This cult of personality BS is what the media wants.

After all, what is the reason that the media is scrambling to get Obama on the show with election day in a fortnight plus a day?

Well, what is the reason that they cover elections like horse races rather than like campaigns to decide who gets to run things? Its easier that way ... there are a lot of constants when covering elections like horse races, even when the issues come and go ... and some issues are divisive, so that if you look like you are "taking a side", some idiot is going to go off their nut.

And so its (imagine race announcer over the PA), "Lady Dancer and Shadow Pocket are neck and neck coming around the turn and look at Senator Obama cheering in the stands, doesn't he look dapper. Such an articulate and intelligent gentleman."

Which is a genuinely weird way to announce a race, so why is that?

Well, notice that this horserace is looking like the last one, with the Democrats catching the Republicans and possibly starting to pull away, except the last one the announcers call of the winner at the line was overturned when the counting was finished ... so they are really nervous about being that announcer.

And there's nothing that the Democratic party can do to change that right now. So the important thing is that Obama is using that to help out current candidates in the field right now. If it turns into an actual primary run, we can worry about that on the 8th of November.

Join GOTV, if you are concerned about the fairness of the election become a poll worker, poll observer or poll watcher ... do something to help win this election. If we can get our "horses" over the line for a Democratic House Majority, then the power of the subpoena will find plenty for the media to get excited about.

[BruceMcF]

36. Yes WE can focus on building a party ... but ...

... we will have to pay attention how to do it in the context of the media cult of personality.

It is the media CW that it is not issues that matter, but that people vote on 'character'. We will have to look very hard at the capability of presidential hopefuls to connect character to the public actions that need to be taken very urgently. It may be that this narrows down the field quite substantially.

However, I'm not going to bother with trying to work out whether Obamapalooza is the way to do it until November 8th (or maybe November 9th, in deference to post Nov. 7th hangovers).

[frogcycle]

38. here here!

[BlueManDude]

8. I'm more concerned with election in 2 weeks than the one in 2 years.

[pnwmom]

21. Then what are you doing here?

[MontanaMaven]

30. To draw the focus back to issues

[Catchawave]

9. Why did you drag John Edwards into your topic...?

With the words "abysmal, shallow, unprepared".

What is "dwards" ?

Geesh. :banghead:

[beaconess]

10. I did it for comparison

Edwards WAS abysmal on Meet the Press his first time around and people agreed that he seemed shallow and unprepared. Yet, as I said in my post, he improved significantly and by the time he was a leading contender for the nomination, he was widely considered the most articulate and effective of all of the candidates.

I brought that up in order to show just how good Obama is - if in his first outing he was so much better than Edwards was in his, and Edwards turned out to be top-notch, imagine how good Obama will be with a couple more years under his belt.

By the way, I'm a HUGE Edwards fan - supported him wholeheartedly from the beginning.

[Impashund Ubique]

15. Obama & Edwards is a false comparison

Obama has been talking to, engaging with and dealing with the media for a long time. First, he was a state senator and then he gained national prominence during the 2004 election, so he got ample opportunity to be advised about and get experience in dealing with national reporters.

Edwards, on the other hand, was a private attorney before running for Senate. It is talking to people that was his forte, not talking to reporters... but as you mentioned, he improved exponentially at that and was a master at giving interviews in short time.

But like I said, this is a false comparison, obama has had far more experience in (and far more enriched) public life than Edwards did when he went on MTP. Secondly, Edwards is known to be a quick study, which was part of what made him one of the nation's best lawyers. With Obama, who is just as intelligent, we don't know how "quick" of a study he is. From what I've seen, I'll bet he is a pretty quick study too.

Lastly, this was a very soft interview. When Edwards went on MTP, it was hardcore stuff because he went as a potential presidential candidate.... we'll have to see how Obama comes across next time, when he is cross-examined more thoroughly. This was not a "If you become President, what will you do about this and this and this" kind of interview, it was more about Obama's positions as a Senator. Obama wasn't there to make a case about why he should be President, so he didn't have that pressure... Edwards did.

So... false comparison to begin with. They are both great guys, though.

[MontanaMaven]

31. Both decent people. Let's keep that in mind

I liked your comparison of "speaking to the press" and "speaking to people" like a jury of your peers. That's what was so refreshing about Edwards and he still speaks that way. I grew up in Illinois and I have a fondness for Illinois statesmen like Stevenson and Dirksen and, yes, Lincoln. I was excited about another Illinoisan rising to leadership, so I kept giving Obama breaks. I was disappointed in Obama's speech at The Take Back America Conference in June. He quoted Newt Gingrish and was not audacious. He was sensible. But then I'm a progressive leebrul who is anti NAFTA and a world is rounder. If you're not mad about what has happened to this country in the last 20 years, you are not paying attention. There is a war on the Middle Class. I don't think it's time for too much nicey nice. To the barricades.

[Quantess]

37. Welcome to DU.

I like your webpage.:-)

[BootinUp]

33. I probably wouldn't compare

Obama and Edwards, they seem to be quite different in strengths and weaknesses. I believe Obama is the superior politician. Time will tell.